Netflix now has 209 million subscribers worldwide. Photo: Shutterstock

Netflix now has 209 million subscribers worldwide. Photo: Shutterstock

Since Thursday, 19 August, the price of Netflix subscriptions has risen in France by €1–2 depending on the package. In Luxembourg and Belgium, this is not yet the case. In Germany, prices had already increased a few months ago.

Netflix decided to increase the price of its subscriptions in France starting this past Thursday. To access the catalogue of the American platform, it now costs between one and two additional euros.

The basic package, called Essential (only one screen at a time and no high-definition streaming), is increasing for the first time since Netflix arrived on the French market in 2014, from €7.99 to €8.99.

The Standard package (two simultaneous screens and high definition), on the other hand, has gone up from €11.99 to €13.49 euros, an increase of €1.50 . Finally, the most expensive offer, called Premium (4K on four screens), is now set at €17.99 per month, compared to €15.99 previously.

This increase is effective for all new subscribers and will apply to current subscribers in the next billing cycle.

+50% on the Premium offer

If we compare with the rates offered by Netflix when it arrived seven years ago, we see an increase of €3.50 on the Standard offer and €6 on the Premium formula. That is, respectively, a 35% and 50% increase by the US video streaming giant.

These figures confirm the change in mentality observed at Netflix in recent years. The time when, on social networks and in its advertisements, the platform encouraged its users to share their codes with friends and family now seems very far away.

This increase is not really a surprise when you look at the investments made in terms of content (Netflix’s own productions and acquisitions), a figure of $17bn having been put forward for 2021.

And then, it is also necessary to compensate for a subscription campaign that has naturally not kept up the pace seen during the various confinements (5.5 million new subscribers in the first half of 2021, compared to 37 million for the whole of 2020). On 30 June, Netflix, with 209m global subscribers, recorded turnover of $7.3bn dollars. Net profit was $1.35bn.

We don’t know if the fact that France wants to make Netflix (and other platforms) participate much more in the financing of European--and especially French--cinema has anything to do with it, but for the moment this increase seems to affect only France.

Germany had already seen tariffs go up at the beginning of the year (the Standard formula going up by €1, the Premium by €2), so we could expect to see soon an increase comparable to the one in France coming into effect in Belgium and Luxembourg.

Amazon Prime, the cheapest

By way of comparison, Disney+ currently costs €8.99/month or €89.99/year to subscribe.

As for Amazon Prime (which gives access to the Amazon Prime Video platform), it costs €49.99 per year to have access to its catalogue. Or €5.99 if you prefer a monthly package. This is by far the cheapest offer on the market.

This article in Paperjam. It has been translated and edited for Delano.